Every New Beginning
by FreeSmiles
Summary: Tina and Artie break up after school on a cold, snowy day. He wants to know why it's not working. She doesn't have an answer.


Tina and Artie break up after school on a cold, snowy day. They're outside of the school in the parking lot, and Tina looks at him with tears in her eyes.

"Artie, this just isn't working anymore."

He wants to know why it's not working, and then he's crying too, because they were, they _are_, so good together, and it doesn't make sense for her to end something so perfect.

She doesn't have an answer.

"We can work through this. We can fix things," Artie says, and Tina sees his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"I don't know how to fix it, Artie," Tina replies, and she feels herself ready to break down.

She walks away so that he doesn't see her when the tears start to run down her face in earnest, and when she has to clutch at her chest to make sure her heart is still beating. She doesn't want him to hear her gasping breaths.

Mostly she doesn't want him to make an attempt to comfort her, because she knows that she would just fall right back into his arms. She wishes that he would get angry, furious, and she's sure that it will come eventually, but it will leave right after. He's not an angry kind of guy, and she loves that about him. He will be distraught, she knows, but never vengeful.

Tina thinks that this breakup would be easier to deal with if he hated her.

She hates herself.

* * *

When Tina is honest with herself, she knows why she breaks up with Artie. It's a disgusting truth, and she can't tell it to anyone, because they will judge her for the sick soul that she is.

She is bored with him.

And it surprises Tina just as much as it would surprise anyone else, she's sure of it. She's always been a bit of a homebody, and she's always been content to hang out at the same spots and tell the same jokes and watch the same movies.

But that was all pre-Glee.

Now, Tina knows what it's like to go to the city for a weekend with the girls and get makeovers and go on shopping sprees. She knows what it's like to see concerts and midnight premiers of movies.

She also knows what it's like to be looked at by other people. When she goes out now, she sees other people looking at her, and makes her wonder what else is out there.

In her entire life, Tina had never been glanced at twice, and when Artie smiles at her and she sees stars, and then when _he_ sees stars, she's sure that she's the luckiest girl in the world. And it doesn't even matter that he's in a wheelchair, because he's funny and sweet, and he actually likes her. He tells her jokes just for the sake of hearing her laugh and he gives her flowers for Valentine's Day.

Tina feels sick when she stops to think about how perfect Artie really is. She knows that no one will understand why they broke up.

No one will understand that everything he did just got ordinary, boring. And now that Tina knows a new life, a life of facebook friends and impromptu ice skating trips, she wants a relationship that has more surprise. She ignores the pain in the pit of her stomach when she thinks about Artie's insistence that they could fix it.

Tina lied when she said that she didn't know how to fix it.

The problem is that she doesn't want to fix it.

* * *

She breaks up with Artie on a Friday, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, few people are still around after school when she did it. On the negative side, people still do see and rumors have all weekend to fester.

Tina knows that she and Artie were not exactly a high profile couple, but rumors in Lima, no matter what or who the rumor is about, spread like wildfire, and she knows that she is not prepared for school on Monday.

It is hell.

She tries to pretend that people aren't looking at her, that people are not giving her piteous glances, that a Cheerio did not loudly ask someone if that was Tina Cohen-Chang, the girl who broke up with that sweet boy in a wheelchair.

But she can't. She's good at giving off a façade of hatred for the world, but all of this is too much. Her heart is already fragile, and Artie has either not entered or already left the anger stage, because when he sees her, he just stares at her, his face _sad_.

Tina hates herself.

She manages to make it through the day after excusing herself from two classes to visit the nurse and using her lunch to sob in the girls' restroom.

But Glee is just too much.

Almost everyone is whispering when she walks in and she just can't handle it, and runs out almost immediately. She sees Mr. Schuester on her way out and says that she fills ill, so she's leaving early. He seems to believe her, probably because her face is pale and she left his Spanish class to go to the nurse that day.

Her parents are at work when she gets home, and Tina thinks that she's never felt so lonely, not even when her older sister left for college or she didn't have any friends. Now she knows what it's like to have people, to want to talk to people, but to know that she can't.

She falls into a light, jittered sleep, and she just wishes that this phase of her life could be over.

* * *

Her mom sits down on Tina's bed, running her hand over Tina's hair, slowly waking her daughter up from her sleep.

"Tina, you have a visitor," her mom says, and Tina just wants to send whoever it is away.

Then her mom says, "It's that nice Mike Chang," and Tina is too surprised to say to turn him away. Her mom gets off of the bed and moves to the doorway, turning around when Tina does not follow. "Are you coming?"

Tina nods and gets off the bed. She realizes that her clothes are wrinkled and her hair is messy, but she can't think of a reason to care. Mike Chang might be at her door, but Mike Chang is a football player and star dancer and one of Artie's friends.

She kind of hopes that Mike is there to yell at her in Artie's defense. It would make Tina feel better.

But when she walks downstairs and sees his standing in his Letterman jacket, hands stuffed into his pockets, he has this uncomfortable look on his face and Tina is sure that he's not going to yell. She's not sure what he's going to do, exactly, but she's sure he's not there to gut-punch her.

This just makes Tina feel worse.

They both stand together in the foyer, Tina trying to look at Mike without seeming too obvious, and Mike avoiding looking at Tina at all costs. And then Tina can't take the silence anymore.

"Hi… Mike," she says, and has to take a deep breath before she says his name, because, although her stutter might have been fake, the effects it has on her life are real.

"Hi, Tina," he replies and also takes a deep breath. "Are you okay?"

She supposes that she shouldn't feel so surprised that he asked, but for some reason, she didn't picture Mike Chang coming to her home to ask if she was feeling fine.

"You just stormed out of glee," he continued. "And all of us knew that you wouldn't do that unless you were truly upset or sick or something. So I just wanted to make sure everything was… you know. Good."

Tina has a warm feeling in her stomach as he speaks, and she thinks that it's so nice to have friends. She is sure that when she checks her phone, she'll have missed calls from Mercedes and probably a text message from Kurt, maybe some sort of IM waiting from Matt when she gets online, too.

But it warms her stomach even more to realize that Mike is the only person to stop by.

"I'm okay," she says, and she knows that she is lying, but that seems like the right answer to say in this situation.

Unfortunately, Mike doesn't look like he believes her.

"Call me when you get sad, okay?" he says, and then he smiles at her and turns around to leave.

Tina thinks that his phrasing is interesting, but it probably fits the situation best.

She considers calling him later that night.

* * *

The next morning, Tina parks her car at school. She expects the day to be another visit in her own personal hell, but she thinks that this has to die down eventually. She doesn't matter enough to be gossiped about.

But after the stares and whispers she receives just on the walk from her car to the school, she understands that being The Girl Who Dumped the Boy in the Wheelchair seems to put her on a new level of gossip. She considers shutting her head in her locker and only stops herself when someone shows up beside her.

"Hi," Mike says, and Tina is honestly surprised to see him there. "How are you?" he asks, and Tina knows that her answer is going to be a lie.

"I'm fine," she tells him, and Tina is pretty sure that Mike knows that it's a lie, too, but he doesn't question it. They just leave her locker together and walk to her first class, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Tina isn't sure how it happens, but Mike is there at the end of her class, too, and they walk to her next class, and then one class after that which they share. Before lunch, he is waiting outside of the cafeteria for her and asks if she wants to sit together. Her mind races before she answers, because she's thinking about the logistics of it all. She can't sit with her group, and she can't imagine herself sitting with Mike's group, so she's not sure what they would do.

But Mike is already walking ahead of her and she realizes that an answer wasn't even necessary.

They sit outside on the bleachers. Tina's not sure if they are actually allowed to be there, but she and Mike are having enough fun that she doesn't question it.

* * *

Tina isn't sure how she misses it, but it takes her several days to understand that Mike is protecting her from the abuse that she would normally face in the hallway.

Mike is popular, despite the fact that he's in the Glee Club. People know him, and they think that he's smart and nice and funny, and who cares if he's in Glee, because he's a cool dancer and those kind of skills should be seen.

Tina isn't sure if there are actually less stares and whispers when she walks down the hall with Mike, or if she just notices less of them. It occurs to her that she doesn't really care. With Mike, she has a place to eat lunch. She has a friend to talk to. They even hang out together after school sometimes. She's not surprised that Mike is really studious and they work on homework together at the library. Sometimes they get Dairy Queen together or just drive around in his car, until either one of them has to be home to avoid parental wrath.

Days go by like this, and Tina realizes that Mike is walking a fine line, trying to be her friend and Artie's friend at the same time. But he seems to be doing a good job, and Tina doesn't want to cut any of her Mike Time.

* * *

Another week goes by, and then a week after that, and the gossip has died down. No one cares so much about the Goth and the Wheelchair Kid breaking up, and people even start to think that it's normal for Mike to hang around the Goth.

And as everything starts to become normal again, Tina wonders if Mike is going to distance himself from her. A small part of her thinks that he might, but the more rational part thinks about how often they hang around each other and how they laugh together and that if he was going to distance himself, he probably wouldn't have gotten close to her in the first place.

* * *

It's Friday night and Mike asks if she's doing anything. Tina isn't completely surprised, because he's been hanging out with the boys for the past few Fridays and she figures that it's time for her and Mike to catch up.

"Want to see a movie?" he asks.

Tina smiles and agrees, laughing when Mike insists that she pick.

"I get to pick every time," she objects, but Mike just shakes his head.

"I like letting you pick."

"Even if I pick a chick flick?"

He tries to hide a little grimace from his face, and Tina thinks that it's incredibly sweet that he would pretend not to mind.

When they get to the theater, she wants to test the theory that he wouldn't mind watching a chick flick, but then she decides that she wouldn't be able to stomach that either, so she chooses the newest action film. Mike insists on buying her ticket, and it's a nightly special of free popcorn with a ticket purchase, and then Mike wants buying her a drink, informing her that two bucks isn't anything to bat an eye at.

Tina actually has to remind herself that they're just friends going to see a movie, even if the night has a Date Night feel to it. They're just friends, and Mike has not indicated that he wants to be anything more. She calms her rolling stomach with that thought and sits back to enjoy the movie.

Halfway through, Mike reaches for her hand.

* * *

Tina isn't quite sure what they are, and she isn't sure she's ready to talk to Mercedes about it either. She thinks it might be a little early for her to be moving on from Artie, but she also knows that she moved on from Artie a while before their actual break up.

Nothing else happened that night, and neither she nor Mike talked about the hand holding, although they held hands the rest of the night. He dropped her at home with a hug, which was not at all out of the ordinary.

She spends her Saturday morning trying to clean her room, attempting to work on some homework, but mostly pondering this relationship. She wonders if he's worried about hurting Artie. Mike and Artie are close, after all, and Tina and Artie dated for over a year.

But Tina doesn't want to be controlled by other people.

She's considering calling up Mercedes when her cell phone rings and it's Mike.

"I have a hip hop thing tonight," he says, and Tina thinks that he sounds a little nervous. "Did you want to come?"

She has no other plans, and even if she did, Tina knows that she would cancel them to see him perform.

He picks her up later that night, and when they arrive, she sees that it's an informal kind of thing, just Mike and a bunch of his friends performing for a group of people that they invited. Tina feels honored to be someone that Mike invited. The only other person she sees from Lima is Matt.

Mike is amazing when he gets up there, and Tina thinks that he steals the show. She's pretty sure that she's not biased, either, because the crowd goes crazy when he performs and he gets a standing ovation at the end of the performance.

After it's over, Mike says that he wants her to meet his friends. They're a random bunch from some various districts around. Tina even recognizes a couple of the kids from Carmel's Glee Club, and they smile at her in recognition.

She has a great night, and the only part that hurts is when Mike says, "Guys, I want you to meet my friend Tina."

* * *

She doesn't understand their label, if they even have one. Tina thinks that they act like they're dating, but they never say anything about it. She's getting a little fed up with it, and she either wants to put an end to it all or put it all out in the open.

Tina is standing at her locker one day, waiting for Mike, and she thinks that she might confront him about their pseudo-relationship. But when she hears someone clear his throat behind her, she knows that it's not Mike.

"Hi, Artie," Tina says quietly, and she can't look him in the eye. It's been weeks since she ended things, and they still haven't had a proper conversation. He doesn't look sad anymore, and he never looked angry at all, and right now, he looks pretty agreeable, but Tina is still nervous for whatever is about to happen.

"How are you?"

"I'm good," Tina tells him, and she realizes that, for the first time since the breakup, she's been able to answer that question honestly. "How are you?"

He smiles. "I'm doing well, thanks." There is a pause in the conversation, and Tina is trying to think of excuses to get away.

"I think I'm just going to cut to the chase," Artie says, just as Tina opens her mouth to say that she has to get to the auditorium to practice a solo or head to the library to start a paper. "What's happening with you and Mike?"

Tina is too surprised to answer at first, and when she actually digests his question, she's not sure what to say.

"I don't know," Tina eventually manages, and she at least knows that she's telling Artie the truth.

Artie nods. "Well, it looks to me like you two might be dating, or at least are close to it." He stops to look into Tina's eyes, and she can't look away. "If you are, Tina, or if you want to, I just want to let you know that it's okay."

Tina isn't sure why she seems to be losing all her vocal ability, but all she manages to do is look at Artie.

"We dated for a long time, but it's over now. It was really good, Tina, and we'll always have great memories, but sometimes it's time to move on. And I know that Mike is my friend, but as my friend, I just want him to be happy." Artie is quiet for a moment and then says in a much softer voice, "I want you to be happy, too, Tina."

He wheels himself backward. "I don't want you two to feel guilty about seeing each other. I just want you guys to be happy, and if that's with each other, then that's okay."

He doesn't wait for Tina to respond, and she thinks that it's a good thing, because she isn't sure what to say.

All Tina knows is that she doesn't deserve someone as sweet as Artie in her life.

* * *

She's in her room working on her homework when her mom comes to the door and says that Mike is there. Tina is a little surprised, because Mike usually texts or calls to say that he's coming over, but she thinks that this surprise is at least nice.

She doesn't expect to be greeted with a single flower and a Hershey kiss.

She stops in her tracks before slowly walking toward him. "What's this?" she asks, because really, she has no clue.

Mike grins. "I just had something to ask you."

Tina can't keep herself from smiling and she wonders if Artie's talk with her today had a little something to do with Mike's question. Tina mostly thinks it's sweet that Mike was waiting for a blessing from a friend, and she thinks it's even sweeter when he softly asks if she wants to be his girlfriend.

She agrees and when she tells him that the flower and candy were a nice touch, he laughs and says that's he's glad they're not going to waste.

Tina has a warm feeling in her stomach and when Mike hugs her, there's no kiss included. She's kind of happy about that, because she's not sure she wants her first kiss with Mike to be in the foyer of her home where she's sure her parents are spying in the background.

Mike leaves right after, because it is a school night and they both have a major exam the next day, and Tina goes up to her room, giggling a little.

She thinks that this relationship is going to be even better than her last.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Although this wasn't inspired by the song, the title comes from some of the lyrics to _Closing Time_ by Semisonic. _"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"_. It seemed to fit.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, good/bad/happy/sad!


End file.
